THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



043 



WEEKLY EDITION 



OP THE 



THOMAS G. NEWMAN, 



Vol. XXI. Oct. 14,1885. No. 41. 



APICULTURAL NEWS ITEMS. 



EDITORIAL AND SELECTED. 



lionely, a belated bee 



Hies him homeward drearily — 



There's no clover in the lanes- 

 Cold winds set him shivering ; 

 Sad, he falls to querying- : 



What lor liees remains ? 



Xlie Bee-Keepers' ]71agazine, under 

 the management of Aspinwall & Treadwell, 

 the new proprietors, takes strong ground in 

 favor of the National Bee-Keepers' Union. 

 It deserves its evident prosperity. 



Do Not Think of knocking out another 

 person's brains because he dilfers in opinion 

 from you ; it would be as rational to knock 

 yourself on the head because 3'ou differ 

 from yourself ten years ago. 



A Wiseoiisiii Lady died in twenty min- 

 utes from the sting of a honey-bee. Those 

 l^rairie people can stand a rattlesnake bite, 

 but a bee-sting is beyond the power of 

 usual cure.— .SiKi Francisco Alia. 



In Siberia the e.xiles pasture thousands 

 of colonies of bees on the heaths of the 

 A Itai ranse. and in the Caucasus the Mere- 

 tinzes and Grusinians live in plenty by the 

 sale of the honey stored by their winged 

 flocks. 



A!>'entK can sell the Guide and Hand- 

 Book like "hot-cakes." Send us an order 

 for five copies (with $'2. .50) and we will send 

 you the Weekly Bee Jourx.^l free for a 

 year. This is a rare opportunity to get the 

 Weekly Bee J(jurn.4L without cost ! 1 



Small Sticks will kindle a fire, but large 

 ones will put it out. Short and pithy articles 

 or speeches are the life of a paper or con- 

 vention, while long, dry ones (even though 

 they may ho scientific and learned) will kill 

 enthusiasm, and make everybody "blue" 

 and tired. 



October — the mtmth of falling leaves and 

 frosty nights— is here. It is high time now 

 to decide upon the method of wintering 

 bees, and to commence preparations for 

 currying out that plan. Oct the cellar ready, 

 or have the bo.xes aTid packing at hand, so 

 that either plan decided upon can be im- 

 mediately used when it becomes necessary. 



Keel and Hlaek A lit?* may be destroyed 

 by sprinkling powdei-ed bora.v around the 

 places which they infest. It is also said that 

 p(>wd<M'ed cloves will drive them away. A 

 plate smeared with lard will attract them; 

 if this is occasionally turned up over a fire, 

 multitudes of ants will fall into it with the 

 melted liu'd, and be destroyed. 



Ulr. J. ■W. Teirt, of Bast Syracuse, N.Y., 

 invited a few friends to his apiary a few 

 days ago, to see what a colony of tiees with 

 a Holy-Land queen had done during the 

 past year. It was in an 18-reversible-frame 

 hive, with i>4 ^i-pound sections nearly all 

 ready for the market, 4 frames of capped 

 honey and (> frames of tirood. He values 

 that queen at $10U. This we leain from a 

 local paper. 



Larkln Leonard, a remarkable old gen- 

 tleman, died m Franklin County, N. C, re- 

 cently, at the age of 84. He never bought a 

 pound of meat, a barrel of flour or corn, did 

 not owe a dollar when he died, never wore 

 spectacles, could read, had a good set of 

 teeth, never saw a railroad, had a sow, '37 

 years old, never swapped horses, never was 

 out of honey, nor corn, wore one pair of 

 shoes l.'J years, kept one pair of plow lines 

 19 years, and never moved from the place 

 where he settled when a young man. 



The Guide and Hand-Book, is a book 

 of ready reference and an encyclopaedia of 

 everything desirable to know. As a guide 

 to the home-seeker, it is invaluable. Itscon- 

 tents are partially given on page (553, and 

 will convince any one of its value. W? do 

 not think any of our readers can afford to 

 do without it. As a book of ready reference 

 we find it of great value in our library. We 

 will send the Weekly Bee Jour.n'.4l for a 

 year and the Guide for $1.30. 



Toads are doing considerable damage to 

 California apiaries. A San Francisco paper 

 states that an apiarist, in one of the lower 

 countifs of that State, found that his colo- 

 nies were being decimated by nocturnal 

 visits of large toads. They got upon the 

 alighting-board and there caught the bees as 

 fast as they made an appearance at the hive 

 entrance. These toads were very active 

 early in the morning when the bees first 

 commenced their day's labor. From Ala- 

 meda County, Calif., one of our corres- 

 pondents says that there has been an un- 

 usual number of big toads about, and that 

 toward night-fall they would take up their 

 stand at the front of a hive and make " a 

 square meal " on the bees. He has killed all 

 he could see, but adds, "still they come." 

 Hives that arc near the ground are the only 

 ones that are molested. 



Mlnratory Bee-Keeping in France is 

 practiced on the following plan : 



Those hives being selected whose combs 

 are firm and not likely to be broken by 

 jolting, 30 to 40 of them are carefully packed 

 in tiers in a cart, which proceeds slowly on 

 its travels. If the season be sultry, they 

 Journey only at night, the hives being 

 covered up with cloth. On arriving in a 

 suitable locality the hives are taken out of 

 the cart, set upon the ground, and the bees 

 go forth in seai-ch of food. In the evening, 

 as soon as they have all returned, the hives 

 are shut up, again placed in the cart, and 

 Ihey proceed on their journey. When the 

 cara\'an has arrived at its destination, the 

 colonies are distributed in the gardens or 

 fields adjacent to the houses of the different 

 peasants. who. for a very small remuneration 

 look after them. 



Sense or Dircetioii In Bees, AnlH,etr. 



—At the iTieeting of the British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science, held at 

 Aberdeen, Scotland, Sept. 11, Sir John Lub- 

 bock contributed a pai)er on some recent 

 observations on the habits of ants, bees, and 

 wasps. As regardeil the sense of direction 

 which some insects had been supposed to 

 possess. Sir John referred to some interest- 

 ing e-xperiments of M. Fabre, who, having: 

 taken some liees two miles from home and 

 whiled them round and round in a dark bag, 

 let them out, notwithstanding which they 

 found their way home. Sir John, however, 

 suggested that the ilistance they were taken 

 was not sufficient. His own experiments 

 did not confirm the idea that they had any 

 sense of direction, except in the same sense 

 in which we might be said to have one. In 

 continuation of previous experiments, Sir 

 John took for instance forty ants, fed them 

 with honey, and put them down on a gravel 

 path fifty yards from their nest. They 

 wandered about in all direetiims, and it was 

 obvious that they had no idea which was the 

 right way home. 



AVeryUsefnl Book is on our desk. It 

 is called "The Western World Guide and 

 Hand-Book of Useful Information." We 

 have spent several hours in looking it over, 

 and have added much to our stock of 

 knowledge. It certainly contains the 

 greatest amount of useful information ever 

 put together in fuch a cheap form. The 

 printing, paper, and binding is excellent, 

 and the book is well worth a dollar, ^o any 

 one sending us two new subscribers besides 

 their own, with ,$3, for one year, we will 

 present a copy of this valuable book. 



Birds that Hunt Wild Bees in Africa, 

 are described in the October number of St. 



Nicholas : 



This little bird is very shiftless, and not 

 only fails to build a home for its little ones, 

 but even goes so far as to make other birds 

 have all the trouble and worry of bringing 

 up and feeding them. Like the cuckoo, it 

 puts its eggs in the nests of other birds. 



The " honey-guide," as it is called, is ex- 

 ceedingly fond of honey : or, if it cannot 

 have that, is satisfied with young bees. It is 

 only about the size of a lark, and so is not 

 specially fitted for encountering a colony of 

 bees fighting in defense of their home. The 

 little bees seem to know that their stings 

 cannot injure the feather-covered body of 

 the bird, and accordingly they direct their 

 attacks at the eyes of the robber ; and if the 

 bird does not escape in time, it will be 

 blinded, and so perish of starvation. 



When it has found a nest, it darts away in 

 search of a man. As soon as it sees one, it 

 hovers over him. files about his head, 

 perches near him, or fiutters here and there 

 in front of him, all the time chattering 

 vigorously. The luitive knows in a moment 

 what the little bird means ; and as he loves 

 honey as a child does candy, only something 

 that is very important will 'prevent his 

 accepting the honev-guide's invitation. 

 When he is ready to follow, he whistles : and 

 the bird seems to understand the signal, for 

 it at once flies on for a short distance and 

 waits till the man is near, and then Hies on a 

 tew yards farther. In this way the bird 

 leads the man until the nest i's reached. 

 Then it suddenly changes its twitter for a 

 peculiar note,and either hovers over the nest 

 for a moment, or complacently sits down 

 and lets the man find the nest as best he can. 

 When it is found, the bees are smoked out 

 with a torch or with a fire of leases,' accord- 

 ing to the height of the nest from the 

 ground. A small portion of the honey is 

 given to the bird as its share of the plunder. 

 If the little fellow has had honey enough, it 

 disappears ; but if, as is usually the ease, it 

 receives only enough to whet its appetite, it 

 will lead to another nest, and sometimes 

 even to a third. 



